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My thoughts on Autism Speaks
Someone on tumblr the other day asked me what I thought of the organization Autism Speaks. Being someone on the autism spectrum they wanted to know if I had special insight to the matter. For those who don't know, I have Asperger's Syndrome (which is apparently classified as Autism Spectrum Disorder. It doesn't really matter, a change of the name doesn't change the condition all that much). If you want to specifically know what that's like, you can read what I wrote here: mrenter.deviantart.com/journal… What I'm going to say about certain topics may get into the area of controversy (not about the organization. Most people in the autistic community, from my experience, do not like autism speaks) so you'll have to bear with me. But no I don't like this organization and I don't support what they do. They harm the lives of autistic people much more than they help and we're going to be talking about quite a few of their controversies. In fact, they've done so much since 2005 (the year that they were founded), I don't really know where to start. Let's just start with one of the biggest problems about the organization: their rhetoric. Autism Speaks, as an organization, literally views autism as a disease that must be cured or eliminated. In more ways than one. Let me start with the indisputable: autism in not a disease; it's a neurological condition. You can't catch autism any more than you could catch Tourette's syndrome. You can't "cure" it either. Autism affects how the brain develops. To "cure" autism, you'd need to go back in time and get an individual's brain to develop differently. Actually, that isn't the half of the direction they approach this. Here's the message they spread, this is a commercial by them where they talk about autism like it's AIDS. I'm not even kidding. Internet trolls using "autistic" as an insult aren't as insulting to autistic people as this commercial trying to spread awareness about autism. You might want to watch it because we're taking this point by point: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mycxS… So, it starts out with what sounds like that Misfortune guy from the All-State commercials talking over home movies. "I am autism. I am visible in your children, but I can be invisible to you until it's too late." Seriously, you can replace autism here with an STD (and maybe children with teenager in that case) and it'll be the same. If you want to know how offensive this commercial is to me personally, replace "autism" with "homosexuality" and go from there. By the way, what does too late mean? Autism... doesn't kill people. I mean not directly. Caretakers killing autistic people (or other people with unusual neurological conditions) is a very real problem, and most of them get off scott free because "they couldn't handle the pressure." www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdet…I'd maybe cut this some slack if that's the message it was trying to send, but honestly it seems to be trying to make those statistics more justified. "I know where you live. And guess what, I live there too." Yay, propaganda. Everyone, let's all be paranoid! "I hover around all of you. I know no color barrier. I know no religion, no morality, no currency." While you have footage of only white seemingly lower-middle class kids in the United States. But that "hover around you" line mystifies me. Are they really trying to say that autism is a bird of prey (what that line usually means in propaganda films) and can strike at any time? Once again, that's not how it works. You'd think that worlds' biggest autism-focused charity would know this. "I speak your language fluently, and with every voice I take away I acquire yet another language." Uh... wow. These people don't know what autism is at all, do they. "I am autism and I speak your language fluently." Hey, hey, dipshit: one of the biggest difficulties autistic people face is being able to communicate, with even their own families. "I work very quickly. I work very faster that pediatric diabetes, AIDS, and cancer combined." .............. can I see your sources please? Like, what the actual fuck? Autism works faster than pediatric diabetes, AIDS, and cancer combined to do what? Oh, I'm not thinking about this from the right viewpoint. They're talking to parents who are paranoid that they aren't going to give birth to the most perfect children in the world. If your child has diabetes, AIDS, or cancer it'll ruin your life completely. But if they have autism, it's going to ruin your life even faster. I... don't even know what to say. This is just awful. On every level. "And if you are happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails." Oh fuck off. If the stress of having an autistic child puts too much of a strain on your marriage, then it couldn't have been much of a happy marriage to begin with, now could it? No, what they want you to think is that every case of autism is the most severe thing ever and everyone who has it can't form the basic necessities of life, like eating on their own or even talking sensically. Also, I'd love to mention that most of the kids in the video aren't doing anything but just sitting around. I thought I saw one girl stimming, but that's about it. Then again, I should be thankful that they didn't show everyone running around like wild animals. "Your money will fall into my hands and I will bankrupt you for my own self-gain." Heh he, you wanna remember this for me. We'll talk about what Autism Speaks uses their money for later. Remember that Autism Speaks is supposedly a charity to help out the lives of autistic people. Beyond the fact that you can get financial help from the government (in the United States where Autism Speaks is located), I don't think this is something you wanna be saying, on any level. "I don't sleep, so I make sure that you don't either." Autism usually doesn't affect someone's ability to sleep. Oh, you're trying to make us think that any and all autistic people could kill themselves at any point by accident if they're not constantly supervised. I forgot. Carry on with your disgusting propaganda piece. "I will make it virtually impossible for your family to easily attend a temple, a birthday party, a public park, without a struggle, without embarrassment, without pain." Unless they're the shy loner type because they've given up trying to express themselves because of the messages spread by hateful organizations and such. God, I cannot imagine what I would think if I was a kid seeing this, or if I was the parent of any autistic child. "You have no cure for me." No, the proper cure for propaganda is making yourself knowledgeable about an issue, ignoring sources that have proven themselves untrustworthy. "Your scientists don't have the resources and I relish their desperation." Once again, unless they can invent a time machine and some brain ray that changes a brain's development, it cannot be cured. "Your neighbors are happier to pretend I don't exist." Well then my neighbors are assholes. Then again, I like to pretend that they don't exist so I don't really care. No one really cares about their neighbors anymore. Everyone's too involved in their own lives for that. "Of course until it's their child." Once again, replace "autism" with "homosexuality" and you can see the message for what it really is. And yes, I know that autism and homosexuality are two different things. But both of them have been seen as a disease when they weren't and that caused many, many problems and many prejudices. I'm not saying that this kind of propaganda is going to lead to reform camps (God, I hope not), but it's wrong across the board. "I am autism, I have no interest in right or wrong." Also, the footage does have a very cruel purpose. It's trying to conflate "autism" and "autistic children" into the same term. I say autistic children because Autism Speaks pretends that adults with autism do not exist. They do. "I derive great pleasure out of your loneliness." Yup, it's just you and your case of autism, because a person with autism cannot express affection or spend time with you (sarcasm cough). They're dehumanizing people with autism and just boiling them down to their condition. "I will fight to take away your hope. I will plot to rob you of your children and your dreams." So... uh... once again... autism isn't fatal. "I will make sure that every day that you wake up, you will cry, wondering who will take care of my child after I die." This very thought process has been used to justify the murder of autistic children. A parent couldn't take the pressure because they didn't have access to help or resources and so they decided to commit suicide. Because they couldn't imagine someone else taking care of their autistic child as well as they did, it becomes a murder-suicide. If the parent doesn't take themselves with their child, it's highly likely that they'll get a less severe punishment and may not even see jail time at all ("they just snapped under the stress."). And with the way Autism Speaks... speaks about autism, they almost make it seem justified. "And the truth is, I am still winning. You are scared, and you should be." Personally, I see my Asperger's Syndrome as a benefit. Let me explain. Yes, when I was a kid, I was bullied for being shy and awkward. When I got the therapy that I needed and was able to come out of my shell the positive aspects of my condition showed themselves better. Visualization is incredibly easy for me. I can literally watch a television show I had seen in my head (my videos might not be possible without that), and I can visualize the stories I am writing and capture all of the details. Not to mention, my recent Eras of Animation was a system of my current "special interest." Does it cause me issues? Of course it does, but for me at least, the positives outweigh the negatives. And yes, I understand that some people are "severely" autistic and the benefits are very unlikely to be seen. There's not much I can say to argue that, but state that autism speaks is not only NOT interested in helping those who need it the most, but they want you to think that all autistics are in that category. "I am Autism. You ignored me, that was a mistake." I think you're missing a word there. If you meant to say, "I am Autism Speaks. You ignored me, that was a mistake." Then you'd be correct. By how this commercial is worded you, people might end up believing that autism is just something that an 8 or 9 year old can catch out of the blue and their lives will be absolutely destroyed by it. That's not how it works. Even with the person most affected by autism in the world (in that they actually are a person who HAS it), it is never their entire person. I could go into their other works, like their Autism Every Day one, where a STAFF member contemplated driving off a bridge with her autistic daughter, right in front of said daughter. (There are various versions of this video, and not all of them have it. There's a 7 minute one, a 13 minute one, and a 43 minute one). Luckily Autism Speaks makes a lot of money off of their fear mongering and dehumanizing, but apparently only 3% of it goes to helping actual currently living autistic people. What they're most interested in is coming up with a prenatal test to determine if a person is going to develop autism. Not entirely sure if that's possible (what part of DEVELOPMENTAL don't these guys seem to understand). They poured a lot of time and research into the claim that autism was caused by vaccines. Said person who claimed that was barred from practicing medicine. I'll steer away because that's a whole other argument. On top of other things Autism Speaks has threatened to sue parodies of them. One of the people they threatened to sue was a guy who made T-shirts saying "Autism Speaks can go away. I have autism, I speak for myself." as they claimed trademark. The other person they threatened to sue was a 14-year-old girl who made a blog called "Neurotypical Speaks" Autism Speaks claims to speak for autism, and yet they have no autistic employees or board members with autism. If you don't at least consult people with the condition that you claim to be speaking of, you are at best condescending them. I don't know if this organization is the reason that "autistic" is used as an insult, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were. Category:Miscellaneous